Advanced Fiction Writing (307-0-20)
Topic
Anecdotes and Yarns: Getting Voice to the Page
Instructors
Brian D Bouldrey
Meeting Info
University Hall 318: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
"Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull. The primitive audience was an audience of shock-heads, gaping round the campfire, fatigued with contending against the mammoth or the woolly rhinoceros, and only kept awake by suspense. What would happen next? The novelist droned on, and as soon as the audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him."
—E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
Where does writing come from? By looking at examples of literature that were initially meant to be spoken aloud, we will explore how they were placed, elegantly and not, onto the page. How does this happen? The bardic boom, the pulpit pitch, the mad futurist with a megaphone—so many of the great works of literature were first delivered orally, then spelled out and called literature. Speeches, psalms, slams, rants, anecdotes, manifestos, declarations, sermons, lectures, yarns, ballads, brags, jeremiads, prayers, incendiary instructions for the coming revolution—we'll investigate as many as we can of these in the readings, considering, as writers, how we can get performative narratives of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from the stage to the page. We will discuss, too, the instructive aspect of art and literature, the difference between voice and style, and how oral culture differs from written culture, with a serious take on Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy. We will consider formal prosody, rhetoric, and poetic forms, and original and amusing methods inventive writers come up with to interpret the sound of speech. Readings may include sermons by John Donne, Toni Morrison, and Herman Melville; prayers and suras from Adam Zagejewski and the Koran, Brags from Beowulf, Beastie Boys, Sharon Olds, and Shmuel HaNagid, anecdotes from Ivan Turgenev, Tatyana Tolstaya, and Olga Tokarczuk, murder ballads from Cole Porter and Dolly Parton, speeches and declarations from Susan B Anthony and Frederick Douglass, and jeremiads by Jamaica Kincaid, Valerie Solanis, and Joy Williams.
While writing your own fictions (not necessarily from the oral tradition), we will discuss the instructive aspect of art and literature, the difference between style and voice, how delivery by great orators can change the meaning of the material, and how the speech on the page has its own specific power that makes it, in its way, a second, separate work of literature.
Teaching Method
Reading, lecture, discussion, workshop.
Evaluation Method
Evaluation:
4 short creative writing projects in fiction, prompts as given
1 long creative writing project in fiction
1 optional revision of one of the 4 projects for revised grade
2 short papers (2-3 pages), called annotations
Course Requirements:
Creative work (50%)
Short Papers (30%)
Class participation (20%)
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Prerequisite: ENGLISH 206-0, ENGLISH 207-0, ENGLISH 208-0, or Department consent.